A one day conference exploring the methodological potential of ethnography will be held at Glasgow Caledonian University on 17 June, 2016. It adds a new perspective on social enterprises that seeks to understand the optimistic and politically powerful ideal that drives social practice, that event organizers describe as both ambiguous and elusive. “Ethnography, ethnomethodology and workplace studies offer the methodological potential to carve out local experimental practices of social-problem solving, and to capture the ways managers, staff and/or target groups reflect on their engagement in entrepreneurial activities.”

Ethnography has mostly been used to study marginalized groups, examining paradoxical aspects of human practice and the power structures within. Understanding social enterprise as an organizational form comprising competing logics of social inclusion and management practice, ethnographic methodology can be useful to study complexity and counter-discourse, social enterprise within its political context, and longitudinal and spatial dimensions of organizational behavior.

Papers should address methodological reflections and empirical contributions in the form of a single case study, a multi-sited ethnographic framework, or an auto-ethnography of being a social enterprise practitioner.

The deadline for abstract submission is 18 March, 2016. Please refer to the detailed call for papers for more information.